EAST LANSING — Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services, the designated state entity to improve health care quality, cost, efficiency, and patient safety through electronic exchange of health information, announced an agreement with HT Systems, a healthcare technology leader that provides the latest innovation in patient identity management, to provide the PatientSecure biometric identification system for healthcare providers in Michigan as part of MiHIN’s growing Health Information Technology Cyber Security Program.

The agreement reduces the barrier for healthcare providers in Michigan to receive the lowest price available for PatientSecure and sets the stage for integration with the Statewide Health Provider Directory and planned Patient Directory Services.

HT Systems’ flagship solution PatientSecure is a biometric patient identification management system that captures an image of palm vein patterns and automatically links patients to their unique medical record providing accurate identification of every patient. The company says that improves patient safety, guards against medical identity theft and insurance card fraud, and reduces human errors and cost associated with registration issues such as duplicate medical records and overlays.

PatientSecure has been adopted by more than 160 hospitals and hundreds of affiliated clinics and physician practices across the country. More than 5 million are currently enrolled in the PatientSecure system and tens of thousands of those same patients are successfully authenticated on a daily basis on return visits.

“The PatientSecure technology provides Michigan healthcare providers with an extremely accurate way to identify patients as they move within and between healthcare systems,” said HT Systems Patient Secure senior vice president of sales and marketing Carl Bertrams. “It is non-invasive, easy to use and universally accepted with a 99% patient adoption across the country. We are extremely enthusiastic about the MiHIN-HT Systems agreement because it takes the technology to a whole new level, placing Michigan at the national forefront of positive patient identification across disparate healthcare organizations.”

MiHIN announced the agreement when participating at the HIMSS Michigan Chapter Fall Conference this week at Detroit-Novi Crown Plaza, Novi.